Had a couple of these handhelds for 18 months now. Use them every day. Checked them out on a service monitor and they compare favorably with the Japanese handhelds as far as receiver sensitivity and transmitter power and modulation. Frequency stability is very good, the 440 frequencies in mine haven't drifted more than 50 Hz in 18 months!

Transmitter output is borderline as far as spurs. The receiver filtering is not that good. Get them in a large city downtown, or the Dayton Hamvention, and they pick up a lot of intermod. For comparison, my Kenwood THF6a screened out 80% of the crap my Baofeng was hearing at Dayton. Thus my "Good for the Money" rating.

I don't live in a large city, so the Baofeng is perfectly fine for me. Programming is near impossible unless you use the Chirp third party software.

I haven't seen the low modulation or Touch Tone problems that others have reported. They may have been in models earlier than mine.

Where you buy them seems to make a difference. Hams in my club that bought them from a well known dealer that was selling them in the arena area of the Hamvention last year are having serious problems with transmitter dropout. Maybe just a bad batch. Baofeng will only say that they are an "unauthorized" seller. I bought mine from Radioddity. Other sellers are probably as good, I just have no experience with them. I have no connection with Radioddity, other than buying radios for myself and others from them over the last two years, with no problems.

Would I buy one again? Yes, if I wasn't going to use it in a high RF level environment.

I bought this little HT (actually 2 of them), about 15 months ago. They are rugged little radios. I have one set up at home on an external antenna, and one for portable use. Both get a good workout every month, and both perform exactly as they should.

The only reason I give them a "4" instead of a "5" is the manual programming is a slow pain in the rear. Takes some time to program about 40 repeaters into the rig.

Aside from the programming, if you want a low cost HT that is fairly rugged and simply works, this would be a good choice.

I'm going to give the Baofeng a 2. While an outstanding value, I believe there is poor quality control with these devices being mass produced and shipped from overseas. I've had my Baofeng UV5R5 for about 6 months, accompanied by a Nagoya N771 dual band antenna.

Without the Nagoya, it would've been impossible for me to hit the repeater (about 5 miles away), with the Nagoya, I'm able to hit it due to my height above terrain. Over the last several months the radio has started exhibiting a slight popping sound when I'm receiving, however I'm unaware of any issues when I transmit. I do get full quieting reports on the Baofeng, which is typical.

No spectrum analyzer here, just put the thing through a rigourous 6 months of use. This HT is absolutely not worth it, and to be honest, although it gets some folks into the hobby, with its poor performance, I'd think it'd put people off from the hobby, so be careful with what you recommend.

I still use it from time to time, as it's my only HT currently. I've been using it with crossband repeating, I just plug the cheap headset into it, clip it to my belt and I can continue work around the house while my base station radio is doing all the work.

The unit has some slight warmth to it after what I would call average use. I wouldn't ever leave this thing in a hot car mind you. The standard battery that comes with the unit (1800mah I believe?) is a joke. I usually have to charge it daily or every other day even I'm just listening only. My FT-60 would last an entire week on receive only. I also don't like the feel of the buttons at all on the Baofengs. They are slow to respond, and almost feel sticky to me when pressed. Difficult to program without the software & cable as well. Just to set it up on a new repeater frequency requires getting into the menus a little bit to setup PL tones and what not. Kind of annoying.

$29.00 each X 2 and both work very well. For people that are dissing them, fine go drop $ on a Yeasu. I also have VX3R and this radio works just as well, plus it's a dual bander. It's a solid little radio, feels good in the hand and hits every repeater my VX3R does. You can't go wrong on the price on eBay and free shipping too.

I have a problem with my radio (Radio Baofeng UV-5R+ / Firmware BFB281 -. 120724A-VER05), video: https://youtu.be/A0TB9Oo_BCg the squelc always is open, clock radio listening because is dual watch, so I Reset it does not work...is the same problem, MENU 40 Reset does not resolve, i use with chirp and VIP program software, but can not get it to work, I used info from this page: http://www.miklor.com/uv5r/UV5R-Recovery.php , does not resolve.... the radio transmits and receives, only this always open sql, I hope someone
can help me.
email: ing.jonathandelgado@hotmail.com

I just got one of these and use it to access local 2 meter and 440 repeaters as well as a monitoring radio for public services. It programs a bit differently than what I am use to but once you get use to adding the transmit frequency to repeater channels it is a breeze. I only paid 29.95 for it and it is a great little radio for the price. I am thinking of getting a couple of more for any emergency that may arise in my area. I have not had any problems with this radio so far. Does exactly what they say it will.

Very low price, excellent battery life, solid build, feels good in the hand. I like the fact that you can access all of the buttons on the radio while it is sitting in the charger.

Sadly, it wasn't until I bought a few other HTs that I learned just how deaf this radio really is, on both bands. Compared to a UV-B5 or a Quansheng TG-UV2 or a Wouxun UV6D or UV8D, this radio is surprisingly hard-of-hearing - I have two identical UV5R+s and they're both equally deaf. The radios are a huge disappointment to me in that one single regard, and it would have surely been a deal breaker if I had known that before the purchase. And I'm not just referring to reception using the supplied rubber duck, I'm talking about an A/B comparison between all of my radios using a 17-foot high-gain vertical whip mounted 37 feet up at the base, fed with 1/2 inch Heliax.

I don't care what the specs or lab reviews say, the radio might have great receive sensitivity in the lab with no squelch dialed in, but who listens to their radio with the squelch turned off? I set the squelch to "1" on all of my radios and leave it there.

So one point deducted for being deaf.

The other major gripe I have is the lack of transmit audio punch - I'm sure I'd been testing the patience of everyone on the local repeater in the afternoons when I'd get on the air and chew the fat with everyone while driving home (I was running the UV5R+ thru a mag mount Tram 1180 in the car) - it wasn't until I bought a Wouxun that one guy finally said, "Man, I'm sure glad you finally got a radio that doesn't make me keep one hand on my volume knob, cuz I kept having to turn it up to hear you then turn it back down quick before anyone else keyed up and blew out my ears". I've tried several different mics and gotten the same disappointingly low audio with all of them. To be honest, transmit audio is very clean, just low.

So one point deducted for poor transmit audio volume.

I'm sure this radio is fine for lots of folks who don't need a sensitive receiver, but it's not much use to me.

Anyone wanna buy a couple of UV5R+s, I have two available - they work exactly as they did the day I bought 'em (I have chargers and spare batteries).

I have had three of these rigs for almost six months. $32 from Amazon, no shipping. I program them both manually and with Chirp. Chirp is a breeze, manual is ok but not reallt intuitive. I sold my KW HT. If one of these breals I have a spare, the XYL has one and so far no issues with these guys. I've reprogrammed a number of them for guys in my club but told them last week they have to start learning how to do this on their own. As stated the programming cd is a good coaster, its not good for anything else. I am using the stock antennas now also although the one on my XYLs rig broke. I just swapped it with my spare and put one of the aftermarket antennas on the spare. I have a large battery and several stock batteries. The generiic batteries are fine. Battery life is superb. I also have a couple of speaker mikes but don't often use them. I recommended using the narrow setting for receive but it doesn't really seem to make any difference so I'm thinking it won't matter. One of the chargers didn't have a functioning led. I popped it open and there was a bad solder connection. Fixed that and its working fine niw. Overall, its a nice little ht and certainly beats spending hundred of dollars on an IKY ht. If you are looking for a basic duoband ht, this will fit the bill.

If you are expecting a Rolls-Royce, don't buy a Volkswagen. But having said that, this radio isn't a Yugo, either. It's a very capable unit (with a limitations) that wont break the bank.

History: I purchased two of these units 6 months ago for $35/ea on Amazon. CHEAP! I figured if I used them more than twice, I'd be money ahead.

The Good: This is a tiny radio that stays out of the way. The battery life turned out to be very good, and the tx/rx audio quality is just short of excellent. You can splash several UV5Rs for the price of a single brand name talkie. Can be programmed for MURS if you want.

The Bad: The (free, included in the box) programming software sucks, as does the cable. Use CHIRP and a name-brand programming cable instead and save yourself the headache. Manual programming via the keypad is counter-intuitive. Watch the multitude of YouTube videos that address this issue, and you shouldn't have any problems.

Suggestion: ditch the factory antenna (you knew that already), and stick a Nagoya 771 on there. The factory antenna isn't really that bad, its just that a better antenna is all it takes to make this radio shine.

Overall, this is now my favorite goto/knockabout radio. You can do a lot worse and spend a lot more money, for less. If you want a cheap, tough and capable radio, the BaoFeng UV5R is a good choice.